Artist Statement

Artist Statement

June Kellogg

Coastal Textures

I often enjoy walking meditations in the areas around my home. These walks have helped me to learn to embrace the world just as it is and appreciate the ever changing landscape and quality of life around me. While walking, certain arresting views and textures will cause me to stop and take a photograph or draw a quick black and white sketch. I carry these images of landscape back to the studio for painting references.

Once the paintings begin on canvas, I work to create a combination of my perception of the outside world with an intuitive internal abstraction that has been influenced by the texture and color of plants and flowers growing in nature. I build the paintings up in layers using acrylic paint and ceramic stucco medium, and as I work, I continually look for connections between the external landscape and my intuitive abstraction.This is a push pull process filled with continual changes until the colors, shapes, and rhythms of the painting begin to "sing." Sometimes this takes many layers of paint, other times it happens more quickly, but it always feels like a leap of faith into the unknown. Painting in this manner has made me more comfortable with uncertainty and more connected with the process of creating balanced compositions.

These paintings express my conviction that all things are connected and that the earth must be honored and treated well. While we walk in nature, we must try to leave slight or no footprints so that future generations will survive and flourish on this planet.